Angry Woman Meme

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    It’s a little old now, but there’s a famous meme where a woman is sitting at a table, yelling and pointing, while a white cat, sitting at the table, ostensibly across from her, has a snarky look on its face.  People put in all sorts of dialogues between the woman and the cat, some of which are pretty funny.  If I were to make a meme based on today’s readings, the woman would say, “God calls sinners!”, while the cat would respond, “He calls them to repent.”  
    After all, in all three readings, we hear about sinners whom God calls.  In the first reading, God calls Isaiah to be His prophet, to speak for Him.  But Isaiah knows that he is a sinner.  So he says, “‘Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!’”  In the second reading, St. Paul acknowledges that he is not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church.  And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus calls St. Peter to follow Him, but Peter demurs, saying, “‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’”  
    God knows that Isaiah, and St. Paul, and St. Peter, were all sinners.  God’s omniscience cannot be fooled.  But He does call each of them to do His will: Isaiah to speak for God as His prophet; St. Peter to be the first pope and head of the apostolic college; St. Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.  And with each person–Isaiah and Peter and Paul–God offers them His mercy.  Isaiah receives an ember, touched to his lips, which takes away his sins.  Jesus asks St. Peter three times if he loves Him, and then gives Peter the mission of caring for Jesus’ flock.  St. Paul, who loses his sight when he encounters the Lord on the road to Damascus, regains his sight and is baptized through a follower of Jesus, Ananias.  
    So yes, God calls sinners.  And yes, He forgives their sins.  But He does so in order that they repent and change their ways, which is exactly what Isaiah and St. Peter and St. Paul did.  They left behind what the old man in them, the old Adam, to be exact, and they put on the new man, the new Adam, Jesus Christ, and lived according to His will, rather than their own.  God didn’t call them to Himself so that they could go back to their old ways.  God didn’t want Isaiah to use his speech for sinful matters.  God didn’t want St. Peter to go back to fishing.  God didn’t want St. Paul to return to persecuting His Church.  He met them where they were at, yes, but He led them to a new place, a new mission.

His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George

    In our laziness, our sloth, we can miss that second part.  We’re very happy that God meets us as we are.  It warms our heart that God would choose us, sinners though we are, to share in His life.  But when it comes to leaving the past behind, and going where God wants, no longer just where we want to go, we balk at the change and choose to remain in our past.  This is why so many people love the horrid hymn “All Are Welcome.”  It’s the first part of the call of Jesus to any person.  He welcomes sinners and tax collectors to dine with Him; that is true.  He does not condemn the woman caught in adultery, or the Samaritan woman at the well.  But the story doesn’t end there.  He tells them not to sin anymore, and gives them, by His presence, what they need to change their life to conform to His.  It is as His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George, used to say, “All are welcome, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.”  
    Today, as we admitted Jenna, Raegan, and Skyler to the Order of Catechumens, we saw the witness of one whom Christ called.  Ladies, you, like all of us before we were baptized, have original sin.  Original sin is an obstacle that following God as He desires.  But God has overcome that obstacle to invite you to follow Him by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.  God met you where you were, but now He calls you deeper into relationship with Him, to put out into the deep waters that might be scary, and which take you way from anything in your past which is not of God.  But He doesn’t leave you alone as you put out into the deep waters. He goes with you, and we also, now that you are a catechumen, promise to support you, pray for you, and help you as you prepare for baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist.  
    We stand before you as those whom the Lord has also called, though we are sinners.  And we do not claim that we follow Christ perfectly.  But each time we fall, each time we sin, Christ reaches out for us again, and encourages us to put that behind us as He forgives us in the Sacrament of Penance, and strengthens us to say yes to Him and no to anything contrary to Him and His teachings.  He has called us, too, to deep waters, and sometimes we fear to go with Him, but He calls us, and we hope to follow as best as we can.
    Because the Lord doesn’t want us to wallow in our sins of the past.  He doesn’t want us going back there because our sins don’t give us life.  They don’t give us happiness.  They don’t allow us to be the people He has called us to be.  Only by following Christ, by making His life our own, by living according to what He has taught us through the Scriptures and the Church can we truly be happy and be fully ready for heaven at the end our life.
    So you, and we, are sinners.  And God has called you, and us, to leave that sinfulness behind.  He desires to burn away our sins like with the Prophet Isaiah; to open our eyes like St. Paul; to call us to leave behind our old way of life like St. Peter.  May you, and we, have the courage to answer that call, repent, and be faithful to the Gospel.

Faith or Money?

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            My dad’s trade is business.  As long as I have known him, my dad has been running the financial operations of a company: first Friedland Industries, a recycling/scrap processing company in Lansing, and now the operations manager for St. Jude parish in DeWitt.  And yet, I would also say that my dad, like so many parents, is also a de facto teacher.  He never went to school to get a teaching certificate, but he’s taught me a lot about what he knows, especially finances.  Whether it was not buying Gushers because they were too expensive and too extravagant, or cutting out coupons for our regular grocery needs; or when I was getting ready to leave for college and he was teaching me the importance of building credit, and how to apply for and properly use a credit card; or when he would make sure that I didn’t spend more than I have, my dad taught me how to use money well.  And it has paid off for me when I lease a car, or when I’m deciding how I want to invest my money to save up for retirement (if I’m ever allowed to retire).

            Whether we like business or not, most of us are very particular about how we spend our money, especially if we are adults.  And we try to teach the next generation the same lesson.  I even found myself this summer, after I returned from school, talking to a Lansing Catholic alumnus about the importance of a credit card, as long as it is used responsibly.  We tend to treat money as a precious commodity, because without it we don’t have a roof over our head, clothes on our back, and food in our bellies. 

            In our Gospel today, Jesus invites us to treat our life in God with the same cunning as we treat our money.  He commends the dishonest steward for making sure that he was taken care of, even after he found out that he was being fired for squandering the master’s property.  This parable comes right on the heels on the parables we heard last week, and they’re in the context of Jesus speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees who were upset with Jesus spending so much time with sinners and tax collectors.

            And Jesus tells the Scribes and Pharisees that the sinners and tax collectors are to be commended, not because of what they have done in the past, but because of how they are changing their life when confronted with their sins.  They are honest enough to realize that their life is not godly, and so they decide they better take faith and religion quite seriously.  Just as the master in the parable was impressed by the dishonest steward making sure he was taken care of after his employment had ended, so Jesus was impressed, not by the sins of those who were following him, but by how seriously they were taking Jesus’ call to conversion, to turn away from sin and be faithful to Him.

            Our culture does not deal with sin very seriously.  How many times have we seen on TV, whether from a politician, or a rock star, or an athlete, “I am sorry if…” or “I apologize if…”?  That is not the message of someone who realizes the severity of the offense.  That’s someone who is not really concerned and just wants to get away with whatever was done.  That’s not the message of repentance.  That’s the message of excuse.

            If we are to be commended, then we have to face our sin head on, and make changes.  We have to truly turn away from our sin and give it the gravity it deserves, especially those grave sins which destroy our relationship with God and make us His enemies, rather than His beloved sons and daughters.  A lot of times people face their sins near the time of death.  When faced with mortality, and recognizing that a judgment is coming, people get very practical about how to make sure they’re not going to suffer.  But, as Jesus said so often, “Stay awake!  For you do not know the day nor the hour.”  We don’t know when our time to be judged will come upon us.  And, to quote Francis Cardinal George, “Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid.”  

When faced with our sin, and this doesn’t only happen on our deathbed, what is our response?  Are we like the sinners and tax collectors of the Gospel who leave behind their past evils in order to follow Jesus?  Do we do all we can to make sure we are spiritually taken care of, just as the dishonest steward did all he could to make sure he was materially taken care of, or do we figure we’ve got time to keep living it up, and we can always repent later?  Do we treat our spiritual life as seriously as we treat our financial life?

If we do, then God is not just a three-letter word.  Our faith is not restricted to these walls.  It is something that changes the decisions we make.  It guides the way we vote.  It guides what we watch in the theater, on TV, and what we listen to.  It changes the way that we spend our time so that we are giving of our time and talents so that they’re not just used for our work to earn us money, but are used for the benefit of our Catholic family to show our acceptance of God’s grace and love.  It even changes the way we handle our finances: which charities we give to; how much we spend on niceties; how much we give to the Church.  We realize that, just because we don’t personally benefit from the Undergraduate Retreat, Alternative Spring Break, our Catholic schools, Senior Ministry; Youth Ministry; etc., does not mean that we do not volunteer our time or the things we do well, and even our money to these worthy causes. 

Jesus today confronts us with our sins, not to beat us up, but to give us the opportunity to make the changes so that we are taken care of spiritually in the life to come.  Make the change so that you will not be left outside of the gate, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, but will be welcomed to the wedding feast of the Lamb in the banquet hall of heaven.